Facing Evil: Confronting the Dreadful Power Behind Genocide, Terroism, and Cruelty (Confronting the Dreadful Power Behind Genocide, Terrorism an) by Paul Woodruff

Facing Evil: Confronting the Dreadful Power Behind Genocide, Terroism, and Cruelty (Confronting the Dreadful Power Behind Genocide, Terrorism an) Reviews

• 
  Alice

  Facing Evil is a collection of papers presented at a 1987 conference called "The Symposium for Understanding Evil." I guess I was attracted to this book because I worry about all of the awful things people do to each other. It is hard to reconcile my own mostly pleasant interactions with other human beings with the knowledge that atrocities are being committed on a daily basis all over the world. Not only are wars and killing a constant in human history, but statistically some of the people I know are probably abusing their children and one another. It's horrifying, and I was intrigued by the idea of a conference attempting to address the role of evil in human affairs.
  
  I liked some of the papers more than others. Maya Angelou's "That Which Lives After Us" is really good as are Gregory Curtis's "Why Evil Attracts Us" and Phillip Paul Hallie's "The Empirical Evil." Angelou was the only presenter I had heard of, but it seemed like the others were prominent thinkers from an interesting variety of fields (at the time of the conference). Some of them were pretty boring, but overall I was engaged. While I may not believe in the literal devil (as a few of the speakers profess to), I am convinced that there is real evil in this world.
  
  Obviously, the specific manifestations of evil which concerned presenters in 1987 are not always the same issues which concern us in 2008. Nuclear war isn't the concern it was then, though I think it should be. The end of the cold war did not equal the end of the threat of a nuclear conflict. The holocaust was still vivid in the memories of some of the speakers in a way that it can never be for me, because they were alive while it was going on, but recalling the evils committed by Nazi Germany still has the power to surprise and horrify today.
  
  Phillip Paul Hallie describes fighting for the U.S. against the Germans during WWII and committing acts of cruelty in order to stop the Nazis from committing acts of cruelty. He says, referring to a French village that resisted the Nazis nonviolently and saved numerous lives, "They didn't stop Hitler. They did nothing to stop Hitler. A thousand Le Chambons would not have stopped Hitler. It took decent murderers like me to do it." I found Hallie both upsetting and thought provoking. I have always hated the idea that war is somehow necessary, and Hallie tackles this issue with the complexity it deserves.
  
  To me the most interesting statements came from Gregory Curtis. He says, "Evil validates our weaknesses and our secret appetites. It tells us we're all right. Evil does not ask us to feel guilty. You are what you are, evil says. In fact, if you want to, you can get worse."
  
  Scary stuff.
• 
  Rafael

  It's impossible to properly rate this book. Sims essays were extraordinary and enlightening while I found others to be less so. It's still a worthwhile read.